Air travel has long been, and continues to be, a safe mode of transportation. Nonetheless, substantial effort continues to be expended to develop flight systems and human-factors practices that even further improve aircraft flight safety. Some examples of these flight systems include flight management systems, global navigation satellite systems, differential global positioning systems, air data computers, instrument landing systems, satellite landing systems, traffic alert and collision avoidance systems, weather avoidance systems, thrust management systems, flight control surface systems, and flight control computers, just to name a few.
Despite good flight system design and improved human-factors practices, there is a continuous desire to provide further flight safety improvements. One particular aspect that is presently undergoing significant improvement is in the area of obstacle avoidance. It is generally understood that improving aircraft flight crew situational awareness during flight operations, ground operations, and landing operations, will likely improve the ability of a flight crew to avoid obstacles.
During flight operations, flight crews make every effort to consistently survey the region around the aircraft. However, aircraft structures, such as the wings and the aft lower fuselage, may block large regions of airspace from view. Moreover, at times the cockpit workload can possibly detract the flight crew from visual scanning. To enhance situational awareness during crowded air traffic and/or low visibility flight operations, many aircraft are equipped with a Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). Although the TCAS does provide significant improvements to situational awareness, the burden remains on the pilots of TCAS-equipped aircraft to avoid another aircraft.
During ground operations, the possibility for a runway incursion exists, especially at relatively large and complex airports. Governmental regulatory bodies suggest that most runway incursions that have occurred are due to pilot induced errors. These regulatory bodies also suggest that the likelihood of a runway incursion increases if a pilot lacks awareness on the position and intention of other traffic in the vicinity of the aircraft.
Regarding landing operations, there is presently no method or device that provides a visual display of another aircraft encroaching on the flight path of the host aircraft during simultaneous approach on parallel runways. Although the Instrument Landing System (ILS) does provide lateral, along-course, and vertical guidance to aircraft that are attempting to land, the ILS may not maintain adequate separation during a simultaneous approach on parallel runways because the displayed localizer signal during an ILS approach does not support independent parallel approaches. Although parallel approaches may be adequately staggered in fair weather, and the ILS is intended to maintain an adequate vertical separation between aircraft until an approach is established, inclement weather may decrease airport capacity and compound the potential parallel approach problem.
Hence, there is a need for a system and method of improving aircraft flight crew situational awareness during flight operations, ground operations, and landing operations that does not suffer the drawbacks of presently known systems. The present invention addresses at least this need.